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Kevin Alexander Gray: Blacks must demand more of Obama

The president uses their forbearance to put off doing what must be done.

By KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY

Last update: October 23, 2009 - 7:27 PM

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The Novocain has got to wear off for black Americans and progressives. Then they will see that President Obama is not their savior.

Back in 1964, Malcolm X wrote that blacks were getting beat up but were suffering in silence, like a patient in the dentist's chair. They didn't know what was happening to them because of the Novocain the dentist had given them.

Racial solidarity is the Novocain of the moment, a numbing agent for people who are being beaten up by the economy.

And if it weren't for the Novocain, blacks and progressives would be insisting on much more from Obama: like a government jobs program, like a moratorium on home foreclosures, like an end to the war in Afghanistan, like a crackdown on police brutality, like a defense of our civil liberties.

In May, Obama's Justice Department went before the Supreme Court to argue against a 23-year-old precedent that was established in the Michigan vs. Jackson case to shore up our Sixth Amendment right to legal representation. The issue before the court this year was whether a defendant who has already been appointed counsel may be interrogated by police without that counsel present. The Justice Department actually agreed with Justice Antonin Scalia that the Michigan restriction "serves no purpose," and the court ruled 5-4 that such interrogation was not a violation of a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Or take the economy.

By any measure, the black community is in a severe depression. Nearly 25 percent of blacks live in poverty in the United States, compared with 8.6 percent of whites. Yet Obama proposed no targeted youth or adult jobs program as part of the $787 billion stimulus package.

Black politics used to be about more than just one person, whether that be the man on the street or the man in the White House. Blacks should treat Obama as they would any other person in power. It doesn't help them, or him, to stand down, back up or hush up.

But I keep hearing, "He's doing the best he can under the circumstances," or "Give the brother a break." For some, it's enough that he's "just not embarrassing black folk."

At a conference in Atlanta of the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network this summer, John Silvanus Wilson, the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, urged people to have patience. And he told them, shockingly, to "crush the haters" who would challenge the pace of the administration in addressing black concerns.

But this very silence has allowed Obama to get away with not saying or doing anything that would appear to address black concerns. It also allows him to do things against their interest, like bailing out Wall Street fat cats or making speeches condemning blacks for their "irresponsible" behavior -- something that no white politician could get away with.

We can't back down on what we are trying to accomplish -- a more civilized, humane and sustainable society. Malcolm X said if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. When the Novocain wears off, more blacks and progressives will realize this -- and demand better.

Kevin Alexander Gray is the author of "Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics" and "The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama." He wrote this for the Progressive Media Project.

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